A Perfect Act
by dietplainlite
Summary: Five times Sherlock apologizes to Molly and one time she forgives him. Contains spoilers for Series 3.
1. Chapter 1

_Sorry your engagement is over._

It loops through her mind and she can't shut it up, even with her ear buds jammed in and the volume up. It's Fiona Apple, "Sleep to Dream," and she's listened to it through twice already. The carriage is full and she's jammed between two City boys. Both are in dire need of a bath or getting their suit coats cleaned, and it's not helping that she's basically at armpit level with them as they hold onto the bars.

_Sorry your engagement is over._

She turns up the volume further. Futile, obviously, but she does it anyway.

He always smells clean, which astounds her.

Well, almost. He certainly didn't today. But she really didn't know who that was today, in the lab. She's seen the specter of him, in stories Greg has told her and in the desperate way he would sometimes ask her for something, anything to work on, to toy with, to occupy him.

_Sorry your engagement is over._

She looks down at her hand, the bare finger. The slightly puffy spot on her thenar eminence (the Mount of Venus in the language of fortune tellers) where the capillaries burst against the plane of his face. She's going to need to put some ice on it.

She's not sorry it's over.

It absolutely wasn't fair. She'd behaved appallingly, still in love with one man while planning to marry another. She really really did think that she was over Sherlock when she'd said yes to sweet, unassuming Tom Dickinson, junior partner at Wesley, Howard and Lowe. She thought she would be happy with the house in the suburbs and a vacation home by the sea and maybe a baby, eventually.

Then Sherlock Holmes had appeared in her locker mirror and her heart had leapt in a way it hadn't in ages (a way it hadn't even when Tom proposed.) Her first thought was "Thank god!" Her second thought was "Oh, fuck."

She knew he'd noticed the ring right away and she waited with a stomach full of lead for him to mention it, to lay bare everything that was obvious about Tom from the cut of the stones and the style of the ring.

Instead he'd let her tend to the cut on his face and his swollen nose and pour out all of his bitter confusion over John's reaction to his return. She'd tried to get him to see things from John's point of view but he'd shrugged it off and told her he had to dash.

"Need to go say hello to George Lestrade."

"Sherlock, you know his name."

He'd graced her with that crooked smile. "Perhaps. Good night, Molly Hooper."

And dammit she'd _tried_. She'd even considered turning down his request to come to Baker Street. Then she had told herself she couldn't avoid him forever; they would have to work together eventually. Perhaps being exposed to him again, to the more irritating aspects of his nature as well as the utterly charming and brilliant, would bring her back to reality. To her soft, safe future with Tom.

Then the bastard had been on his best behavior and made the day perfectly lovely. They'd always had a good working relationship in the lab, and it translated well to the field, but now there was a certain level of consideration for her, a more open regard, and she'd gotten just the barest glimpse of what it could be like, being his true friend, or more.

Of course he'd choose the moment he did to mention her ring, raising the drawbridge immediately after letting it down. And he'd said she deserved to be happy and tried to tell her goodbye but it was too late. She was already fucked. She had been since she'd first heard him speak.

And she was such a coward that it took her six months to let loose her safety net.

The worst part is that, if she's honest, it wasn't even out of fairness to Tom that she broke up with him. For about thirty seconds after she'd let Sherlock walk out of John and Mary's wedding reception alone, she had felt good about her decision. She couldn't go after Sherlock. She had Tom. Tom would always be there.

And then the horror had hit. Tom would always be there. She had agreed to marry him. Despite divorce statistics there was still a really good chance that meant forever. She'd stopped dancing and looked at him as a hot wave of nausea hit her.

"Molly dear, are you alright?" Mrs. Hudson asked.

"Yes. I mean, no. I don't feel well." And all she'd wanted to do was get outside in the cool air and perhaps find that Sherlock had just gone outside for air, too. But then everyone was crowding around her, helping her to a chair, getting a wet cloth for the back of her neck, asking how much she'd had to drink.

They left soon after and she'd broken up with Tom in the cab on the way home. She didn't give him much of an explanation other than "I can't do this."

"It's him, isn't it?" Tom had said. She looked out the window. They rode in silence. He didn't take the ring with him when he got out at his flat. It lay on the seat, sparkling a bit every time they passed under a street light.

"Bit of bad luck, then?" the cabbie said.

"I never even got it sized," she replied.

Molly extracts herself from between the two other passengers as her stop approaches. She's not sorry when her bag hits one of them a bit too hard in the gut.

She's already thinking about her pajamas and the leftover Thai food and her new book when she emerges from the station onto her street. She'd ended up staying late, again, and it was well after seven when she'd finally left.

Her phone beeps as it picks up reception again, indicating a new voicemail. She ignores it until she gets home, and nearly drops it in Toby's water bowl when she sees the eight missed calls from John Watson.

She's deciding whether she really wants to know what's on that voicemail when the phone rings again. She lets it ring three times before swiping the screen.

"Hello?"

"Molly?" John says in a voice she's dreaded ever hearing from John Watson again.

"Molly, it's Sherlock. He's-he's been shot."


	2. Chapter 2

It's not her hospital so she gets lost three times before she finds John in a tiny waiting room near the surgical unit.

"What's happened? What's bloody happened I just saw you two this morning—"

John takes her by the shoulders. "Molly, he's going to be okay. He's lost a lot of blood and there was some damage to his liver. He's in surgery. There was a bit of a scare earlier, but he's going to pull through. "

"What do you mean, a bit of a scare?" she asks.

John breathes in deeply and looks her in the eye as he exhales. "He flat lined when they first got him here. They'd already called it and then. Molly, then he woke up."

John must recognize that she's going to faint, because he steadies her and leads her to a chair. She sits with her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. "Oh God. Oh God. Fuck."

"Molly, that doesn't matter now. He's going to pull through."

"But he could have—and I—"

"You did the right thing," John says, kneeling in front of her. "Don't you dare feel badly about earlier."

She looks up at him. "It could have been the last thing I said to him."

John looks at her with a compassion so overwhelming it threatens to break her. "Everything you told him was as good as telling him you loved him," he says. "Okay?"

She nods. "I'm sorry. Here I am falling apart and I don't even have the right."

"You have every right, Molly. I'm going to get some tea and try to phone Mary again. Do you want any?"

"No," she says. She watches leave, then turns her attention to the muted television. It's the only light in the room other than what spills in from the door, and she's the only one keeping watch at the moment. She watches a family on a reality show argue silently about trivialities as her adrenaline rush wears off and the full force of her long day hits her. She falls asleep curled up in her chair and dreams she is in the morgue. And every drawer she pulls open has Sherlock Holmes on the slab.

Molly wakes up to John gently shaking her and calling her name. She shakes her head and focuses on John's words.

"…out of surgery and stable. He's not awake but you can go see him if you'd like."

She looks at John dumbly and nods, then looks around the room. Still no sign of Mary.

"Where am I going?" Molly says.

"To the right and then another right. Second room on the left."

The recovery room is peaceful and dim, and she stands in the doorway, eyes closed, listening to the sweet sound of his heart monitor and the whoosh of the respirator and it's never hit her so hard that this is what it means to love Sherlock Holmes.

His face in repose is a gift she's seen a few times, and each time she wonders if he's ever looked that young and carefree while awake.

If she could, if she were allowed, she would curl up beside him in that bed and hold onto him until her arms went numb. Instead, she turns and flees, walking stiffly with her head down, not bothering to say goodbye to John.

For the next six days she absolutely buries herself in work, taking extra shifts, even doing other people's paperwork. She gets regular updates from John, but he never volunteers the thing she's too afraid to ask: if Sherlock has asked about her. She's just leaving work a week after the shooting when she receives a text from Sherlock.

—I'd like to talk to you.—

And because she is who she is, and he is who he is, she hoists her bag on her shoulder, hails a taxi, and goes.

Sherlock is staring out the window when she arrives, eyes only slightly glazed from his pain medication. He is shirtless. She focuses on the bandage on his chest in order to fight the flashes of memory evoked by seeing so much of his skin. It's really just not the time.

He turns his head, nods in greeting and she enters. She scans the headlines on the newspapers scattered on the bed as she steps closer. John had told her most of what had happened. The same case that had lead him to relapse had lead to fake a relationship with Mary's Maid of Honor. He'd taken it as far as proposing to her, but John didn't say how far Sherlock had taken the ruse otherwise, so knowing the relationship was fake doesn't take the edge off the sharpness of those bold black letters and what they imply.

"Janine paid me a visit," he said, gesturing to the papers. "Dull."

Molly collects the tabloids and puts them in the bin, then sits on the edge of the bed. He looks at her, brow furrowed, lips pressed together, as if he's trying to figure out who she is. Finally he asks her if she's had any interesting corpses and she fills him in on a few. As she's talking, she catches him looking at her in that strange way again. He schools his features into a neutral expression the second she notices, but it's definitely there. She stops after the third time.

"What is it? Do I have mustard on my face? Is my hair sticking up everywhere from static?"

"No," he says, drawing it out as he leans over to adjust his morphine drip. "Oh, I suppose I should apologize for the thing with the drugs. And the crack about the fiancé."

She looks at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry about the drugs and the crack about the fiancé," he says.

"Did you apologize to Janine?"

"Not really. Why do you care?"

"You used her. The way Jim used me."

"No, not like that," he sighs. "Jim used you so that he had a reason to see me, pretend to be gay and then taunt me about dismissing him later. I used Janine to gain access to the personal residence of a cretin and save a man's reputation."

"What is wrong with you?" Molly whispers.

"Currently a bullet wound to the chest and an increased tolerance for opiates."

"That's not what I meant."

He looks up at the ceiling and exhales loudly. "I didn't sleep with her if that's what you're worried about."

"Why would I worry about that?"

He looks back at her and narrows his eyes.

"Right," she says. "I'll be leaving now." She picks up her bag and starts toward the door.

"Molly, I said I was sorry."

She stops at the door but doesn't turn around. "You're only sorry you got caught," she says, and walks away.


	3. Chapter 3

It happened the night before he was to leave London. Sherlock stayed in the city for several weeks after his death, flitting from one safe house to another. He only came to hers when he needed to sleep. He said it was the most quiet and comfortable of all his places but she thought he also appreciated her well stocked pantry, which he would help himself to after he woke up.

And maybe she did find herself buying some of his favorites; she always tried to be a good hostess.

The first night he slept over was the day he died. He arrived at her flat long before she did. She had his "body" to work on and paperwork to falsify, after all. Mycroft provided her with an attorney who had effectively stonewalled the police, and she'd managed to avoid the press when she left Bart's. Being small and unassuming had its advantages every once in a while.

She bought food for him when she stopped for her own. Egg rolls and wontons. She'd only ever seen him eat finger foods. She didn't know if he'd eat—he was technically working—but it didn't hurt to try.

He sat on her sofa, feet on the coffee table, staring at her laptop screen. Showered, hair clean, wearing the track pants and hoodie he'd changed into before hopping into a shiny black car. She'd seen it drive away before they even brought her the body.

"Ah, Chinese. Excellent. I am feeling a bit peckish and you haven't anything in."

"Sherlock I went shopping two days ago."

"Yes, but everything you have requires cooking."

She opened her mouth to answer but stopped when she really got a look at him. His eyes were red and puffy and his hands were shaking over the keys.

"Sherlock, are you okay?"

"Of course," he said. He got up and took the bag of food from her and went into the kitchen.

"Please don't lie to me."

"Well if you know I'm not 'okay' why did you bother asking?"

"I just—nevermind," she said.

He ate standing up in the kitchen while she sat on the sofa watching the news. It was full of Sherlock.

"Your sofa is too short." The voice came from directly behind her and made her jump.

"What?" she said, looking up at him. He stared at the television.

"Your sofa. While it's reasonably supportive, it is four inches too short to provide optimum comfort for someone my height. You don't have a spare bedroom unless you count that cramped little office, and there's not a bed in there anyhow. You rarely have overnight guests, so you don't possess an air mattress or lie low."

"And?" she said.

He rolled his eyes. "You have a queen sized bed, somewhat ridiculous for a single woman but—"

"Oh, do you sleep in a twin bed?"

"No," he said, looking indignant. "But I'm also over six feet tall."

"No you're not."

He looked at her like she'd just sprouted a unicorn horn. "What is the matter with you?"

"Well, I know you've had a really long day but I've had a bit of a day, too. And it sounds to me like you're about to ask me to sleep on the sofa because it's a few inches too short for you?"

"Yes. Do you need a moment to get what you need from your room? This will probably be the last decent sleep I'll get for a while so I'd like to start soon."

Molly took a deep breath and closed her eyes as pressure started to build behind her eyelids. She couldn't cry. It would only make things worse. He'd either be completely perplexed and run down a list of reasons why she shouldn't be upset, or he would offer a half-hearted apology.

She opened her eyes to find him looking at her with wide eyes and pouting lips. She wanted to murder him herself for thinking that would still work, but she was too damned exhausted and so bloody scared. Her shoulders drooped and she went into her room, grabbing her pillow and duvet (he could manage with the bedspread) and her pajamas. She dumped the bedding on the sofa and disappeared into the bathroom.

The flat was dark and her door closed when she emerged from one of the longest showers she'd ever indulged in. She cocooned herself in her duvet and fell asleep with the television on.

Over the next six weeks Sherlock dropped in on her occasionally. He never established a real pattern, and sometimes she would merely come home to subtle signs he had been there. (If you can call empty packets of biscuits and unwashed tea mugs subtle.)

One night, after an intense double shift that had left her body a mass of aches, she heard his key in the door right as she settled between cool, freshly laundered sheets. The idea of leaving her bed was unfathomable. She steeled herself to tell him he had to make do with the sofa.

He made his way quietly to her room and she could feel his eyes on her as he stood in the doorway. She rolled to her back and cleared her throat, ready to tell him where to find the extra pillows and blankets, but he had already lifted the covers to slide into the bed beside her.

She stiffened as he put his arm around her and laid his head on her chest. He smelled vaguely of motor oil and grass clippings and she spared a moment of silence for her clean sheets before pushing him off of her and fumbling for the bedside lamp.

"Look at me," she said. He sat back on his heels, flipped back the hood on his sweatshirt and obliged her. She got to her knees and scooted closer so she could get a good look at his eyes. He was alert, and his pupils appeared normal for the low light in the room. When she put her hand to his neck to feel his pulse he grabbed it. He pulled it away from his neck but didn't release it.

"I'm not high," he said. "That would be incredibly stupid under these circumstances."

"It was incredibly stupid before," she said. "So what are you doing?"

"The trail of your belongings leading to the bathroom and the fact that you didn't have the energy to wash your hair or eat anything indicated it might be a good idea to let you keep your bed."

"How generous of you," she said. She tried to push away, his proximity becoming a little too intense, but he snaked his arm around her and pulled her closer, her chest pressed to his, practically straddling one of his thighs. "Sherlock, are you sure you're sober?"

"Yes," he said. His eyes scanned her, moving quickly as if he were memorizing her.

"Oh," she said. "You're leaving, aren't you?"

His gaze darted from her mouth back to her eyes. "Tomorrow." He ran his free hand down her arm, the back of his fingers grazing her skin and raising goose bumps all over.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"Being a bastard." She tried to push free again, but he wrapped his other arm around her, holding her in place. She braced her hands against his shoulders. She'd never even hugged him, rarely even been this close to him, and now she could feel the roughness of his jeans through her knickers and count the freckles on his nose and feel the thunder of his heart against her chest.

"I promise I didn't have anything like this in mind when I came in here," he said, staring at her mouth again. "I was going to let you know I was fine on the sofa and go to sleep."

"Then what are you doing?" she asked again.

The corner of his mouth turned up as he moved his hand up to cradle the back of her neck. "This," he said, and pressed his lips to hers.

The initial contact sent a jolt straight through her to her fingers and toes. His lips were slightly dry, but as soft as she'd always imagined. She sighed and wound her arms around his neck. The rational part of her mind screamed at her, something about bad ideas and pride. But what the hell would her pride matter if he died out there and she had never taken this opportunity? So she silenced that voice and did the thing she'd wanted to do for what seemed like her entire life. She plunged her hands into his hair and ran her fingers through it as he trailed kisses down her jaw and neck. There were no more words as he pushed her back onto the bed and covered her, devoured her, creating a chasm of longing even as he did everything in his power to fulfill her.

Molly woke to a cold bed and an empty flat and a note on the table that read "I'm sorry." She didn't let herself stare at it. She didn't keep it. She balled it up and threw it in the bin and went to wash him off of her body. By the time she got out of the shower she'd made a decision. She was going to get over Sherlock Holmes.


	4. Chapter 4

The tea in the canteen is rubbish but Molly needs caffeine and the coffee is worse. She'd jumped at the chance to come in when a coworker took ill (even though it was a lab tech and she's only cleaning slides) but the rigorous pace she'd set for herself over the last week has caught up.

She stares at the lunch she hadn't gotten a chance to eat during her first shift and considers binning it and opting for an Aero bar. Her text alert goes off as she's digging for change in her bag. It's from Sherlock.

—If anyone asks it's okay to tell them—

She's typing the word "What?" as another text comes in.

—Well, maybe don't tell them everything.—

Molly types out a reply, telling him to turn down his morphine drip, but Mary Watson walks up to her table before she can send it. The other woman looks worried, but not devastated, which helps relieve the gnawing feeling in Molly's stomach slightly.

"Mary! Wha—"

"Sherlock's left the hospital against medical advice. Went out the window, actually," Mary says. She sits down at the table opposite and fixes her enormous blue eyes on Molly. "Has he contacted you?"

Molly learned a lot about lying during Sherlock's extended absence. She resists the urge to glance at her phone, to look down at her hands, to blink.

"No."

"Do you know any place he might have gone? Greg and John are looking into some of his known bolt holes. No luck so far though.

So this is what Sherlock's text meant.

"Just the spare bedroom…well, my bedroom." She mentally kicks herself over how that must sound. "We agreed he needs the space," she ends lamely. She takes a sip of her tea, barely managing not to grimace at the foul tast, as Mary looks at her with a half-smile and a raised eyebrow.

"So he kicked you out of your bedroom?"

"Yeah. This was right after—everything. He hasn't been over since he's been back. Wasn't really appropriate, with Tom, you know."

"Right," Mary says slowly, still looking steadily at Molly. "Well, I'll tell John to stop by your place just in case. You'll let us know if he contacts you?"

"Yeah. It's not likely, though. I went to see him earlier and it didn't go well. He thinks I'm still angry at him."

"Aren't you?" Mary says.

"Furious," Molly says. "Er, I have to get back to the lab now. Please let me know when you find him."

"Of course," Mary says and leaves the canteen, phone already to her ear.

As soon as she's out of sight, Molly returns to her phone.

—_Mary just asking about you. Told her about staying w/me sometimes. You should really go back to the hospital. Please_.—

—Don't worry. I will, later—

_—How much later?—_

—That depends on my client. Now do stop texting me for a moment, the alert could compromise my position.—

"What the hell are you _doing_?" Molly sighs. She bins her entire lunch and the tea and bypasses the vending machine on her way back to the lab, appetite thoroughly destroyed.

She's at an all-night diner picking at a basket of chips and attempting to get past the first paragraph of a book when she gets the text that Sherlock is back in hospital and stable. After sending a "thank you" in reply, she reads through the paragraph one more time without comprehending it.

"Fuck it," she says finally, shoving the book in her bag along with her phone and throwing down a few bills for the chips. It's a short tube ride to the hospital and there she is again, standing in the doorway of Sherlock's bloody hospital room.

He's awake, his smile when he sees her slow and easy.

"Molly Hooper."

"That's my name."

"Yes."

"What the hell were you doing out there?"

"Client, case. Couldn't wait and it involved field work. Your safety would be compromised if I told you more."

"Does it have to do with the other case, the one where you relapsed?"

"Tangentially, yes." He pats the bed. "Now, come here, please."

"No way."

"You know you want to." She shakes her head. "Please?" he says, his voice pitched low and soft. "I've read that human contact can be very good for healing."

"Where did you read that?"

"Women's magazine. Come here."

"I'll hurt you."

"Impossible."

So she does what she knew she would do as soon as he first asked. She crosses to the bed and lowers the railing and, as gingerly as she can, climbs in beside him. He groans a bit as he scoots over to give her room. She rests her head on his shoulder and places her hand gently on his tummy.

He smells of sweat and soap and iodine. Cigarettes, too.

"You've been cleaning slides," he says.

"How do you know?"

"Slight smell of ethanol. Your fingertips are dry and your eyes red from the fumes. Setting a bad example, Doctor, not working under the hood or wearing your safety goggles."

"It's ethanol not ether," she says. "Harmless."

As she settles in beside him, her body molding to his, Molly lets herself remember the last time she laid like this with him, in her bed, right around three years ago now. After she'd let him smoke a cigarette in her room, he'd fallen asleep with his head on her chest. She still doesn't know how she didn't wake up when he left, how he'd fucked her into such oblivion that she hadn't registered the force of his leaving or the cold left when he'd extricated himself from her.

Sometimes she thinks she dreamed it all, anyway.

Sherlock puts his hand over hers and that's her breaking point. He feels her stiffen and must know she's going to bolt, so he wraps his hand around her wrist (his thumb and forefinger overlapping she's so small.) She doesn't struggle so as not to risk dislodging his IV or upsetting his wound, but the energy has to go somewhere. She starts to cry.

"Molly, don't," he says, kissing the top of her head. "What's wrong?"

"Everything. I tried so hard, Sherlock. I promise. I tried so fucking hard. It hurts so much and it's never going to stop hurting because you're never going to stop hurting me."

"Oh, Molly."

She manages to break away from him and sits up. "Don't. Don't say anything unless you're going to tell me why you did it."

"Why I relapsed?"

"Why you left without saying goodbye."

"Earlier this evening? Secrecy was somewhat the goal."

"No, you prat. When you left London. Before."

"How was I to know you were talking about something that happened three years ago?" he says.

"You're supposed to know everything." She sits up and gets a tissue from the table by the bed. Sherlock watches her and she has no idea how to decipher his expression, but prays it has nothing to do with pity. He puts his hand on her knee and caresses it with his thumb.

"I didn't say goodbye because I didn't want to hurt you."

"Didn't want to hurt me?" She laughs and chucks the tissue into the bin. "And leaving some bollocks note saying you're sorry wasn't hurtful?"

"I have a bad habit of blundering into saying hurtful things to you. I wanted to avoid that. Why are you just now asking me this? I've been back over a year."

"I thought it didn't matter anymore. I thought I was over it."

Sherlock moves his hand from her knee to her hands, folded in her lap. He takes one of them and tugs on it. Molly takes the hint and resumes her former position beside him.

"I'm sorry," he says into her hair.

"I wish I could believe that," she says.

"So what are we going to do about this?" he asks. She doesn't answer for a long time, listening to the steady beat of the heart monitor and the rasp of his fingertips making circles on her arm.

"I don't know."


	5. Chapter 5

He comes to her two days before Christmas. She hasn't seen him in three weeks. He looks healthy. He's filled out again nicely and while his skin will always be pale, it's lost the sallowness that was so prominent during the bulk of his recovery.

That had been rather slow process due to his infuriating habit of leaving the hospital whenever it suited him. He had once dragged himself to Bart's to ask her a question about a years old cold case because they had taken his phone away. Eventually, at the insistence of Sherlock's doctors and the nursing staff, he had been installed back at Baker Street under the care of a private nurse.

She'd been to see him a few times when he was still in hospital and after he went home, but there had remained a barrier between them. It wasn't a wall, exactly. More like a force field. Something that couldn't be scaled and would cause irreparable damage if they pushed too hard. They weren't able to connect in the way they once had, or to get back to where they'd been before his relapse. So she'd stopped coming as often, and when he'd started taking cases again, he'd communicated what he required of her mainly through text and email, and rarely came to the lab during her working hours.

And God, did she miss him. More keenly than she had during his "hiatus." But every time she thought to text him about something not work related, or got the urge to drop by his flat, she remembered their uncomfortable silences and blanched. Their silences had rarely been uncomfortable, even when she'd been in the first throes of the crush that had turned into full blown love. And now they avoided that silence with stilted conversation and it just felt so _wrong._

She's in the middle of wrapping presents, impeded by Toby's continually batting the paper every time it moves, when she hears his keys. The fact that she recognizes the sound of his keys in her hallway after so long makes her face burn. She gets to the door before he can unlock it.

"You could have knocked," she says, not ready to let him in. She doesn't even care about her dowdy track bottoms or her messy hair.

"Isn't it easier to not make you get up, since I have a key?"

"You don't live here and you weren't expected. What if I wasn't decent?"

"I've seen—"

"Nope. No. Not going there. Come in, it's freezing," she says, closing the door behind him and shooing Toby away from the ribbon she'd been curling. "Did you need something? I'm sorry I haven't been paying close attention to my phone. I thought you were going away? For Christmas? Do you want some tea?" She can't look at him. He's too bloody beautiful with his cheeks all rosy from the cold and he would have had to throw it out there right away, wouldn't he? The fact that he's seen her naked. The fact that he's not only seen her naked but seen her completely undone. The fact that she is one of two people in the world who know what he looks like when he comes undone.

"Molly," he says, grabbing her hand as she walks past to go to the kitchen.

"Sherlock, please."

But he doesn't listen. Why would he? He pulls her close and he's still cold he's been inside so briefly. He hasn't even removed his coat and his scarf tickles her nose as he wraps his arms around her. She looks up at him and the way he's looking at her is so familiar but before she can place when she's seen that look before he's cradled her head in his hands and leaned in to kiss her.

It is as electric as the first time. It may as well be the first time, there have been so many kisses between then and now that were not this perfect blend of sweetness and desperation and…oh.

Molly breaks the kiss and braces her hands on his chest, leaning back to look at him.

"You're saying goodbye. Why are you saying goodbye?"

He tenses briefly but manages a smile. "I rather thought I was saying hello." He cups her face and stoops to kiss her again but she ducks out of his grasp.

"John said you were all going to your parents'. What's going on?"

She sees his panic—it barely lasts a second—before he settles on nonchalance, taking off his scarf and coat and tossing them over the back of her armchair. "I think I will have some tea," he says and flops onto the sofa, legs stretched out and head on the armrest.

"Offer revoked," she says. She moves to the sofa and shoves his legs out of the way to make room to sit down. "You can't do that, you know."

"Do what?"

"Barge in here after months of…weirdness and kiss me like that."

"Broke the ice, didn't it?"

"Sherlock, please. Tell me what's going on."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because this is more serious than anything I've dealt with before and I won't risk involving you this time, especially not just for the luxury of unburdening myself. I'm sorry." He sits up and reaches for her hand but pulls away and stands up.

"I think you'd better go."

"Why?"

"Because sleeping with you is a very bad idea and it's a lot easier to stick with that decision if you're not here."

"I didn't come over here to—"

"Yes you did."

The wide eyed hurt in his eyes is almost enough to make her relent, but she knows that what she has to offer won't really make it better, not in the long run.

"I'm certain I have everything under control. I wanted to see you—just in case."

Molly's resolve weakens enough to lead her to him. Standing in front of him and pushes his hair back from his forehead and places a gentle kiss there. He puts his arms around her waist and his ear against her heart and she holds him there, for a moment, breaking away before the situation escalates.

"Please go, Sherlock. I can't."

He nods and stands, his arm brushing hers as he goes to get his things. As he leaves he stops, hand on the doorknob and turns to her.

"I do want to see you again. Soon. New Year's Eve?"

"Are you asking me on a date?"

"As close as we'll ever get. Goodbye, Molly Hooper," he says and ducks out the door.


	6. Chapter 6

She's finished up another Christmas suicide, a man in his forties, living alone and not found for two days. These are the kind of things that wake her up at night sometimes. The idea that she could die alone and there'd be no one to notice for days. She knows logically that she'd be missed at work, but she's so immersed in work and finishing her studies that she hardly sees her friends. She wonders if Sherlock has ever had such thoughts. Other than John and some rather dicey sounding flat mates he'd had on Montague Street in his mid-twenties, he's lived alone his entire adult life, and even his brother doesn't check in on him daily. She'd thought about texting him to come take a look at this one—he's always interested in decomposition—but decided against it. He'd been very specific about when he wanted to see her again and she's not even quite sure he's back from the country. She doesn't want to be that girl. Not anymore.

As she makes her way into the break room, she glances at the telly. For the first moment—before she hears the digitized voice and the poorly animated mouth—she thinks it's just his mug shot on some true crime show.

"Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?"

There's the nausea and the heat starting in her forehead and flowing down her body.

"Is this a fucking joke?" she says to the empty break room. Hand shaking so hard she can barely press the button, she picks up the remote and turns the telly off.

She can still hear it, faintly, from other parts of the hospital.

"This is impossible," she says. "He's dead. I _saw_ him."

Molly almost runs back to her office and reboots her computer. "You're fucking dead," she says as she types in her password and enters his name into the records search. She's finally pulled up his record when her phone rings. She looks down at it and exhales in relief.

"Sherlock what the—"

"Molly are you alone?"

"Yes."

"I need you to go to the most crowded part of the hospital you can find. I'm sure there are people standing around gawking and gossiping. Go find a group. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Sherlock I'm pulling up his autopsy report right now. I have to see if I missed something."

"We can do that when I get there," he said, his voice rising in panic. "Please. Molly? Molly, answer me."

His voice is faint, coming from the floor where she'd dropped her phone when she pulled up the autopsy photos.

All the photos had been replaced by pictures of James Moriarty, alive and well, laughing and holding up newspapers from the last week. Molly ducks down and scrabbles around under her desk to find her phone.

"Sherlock," she says, still crouching, afraid to stand up and find the real thing standing in front of her.

"What is it?" he says. She tells him and he curses, then implores her again to go to a more public area. This time she complies, running out of her office and into the canteen, where the televisions are all turned off. It's crowded but few people are eating, everyone talking about what had just happened. A few people stare at her, the ones who know about Jim. She finds a group of acquaintances and joins them, though she doesn't participate in the conversation.

A few minutes later, Greg Lestrade and Sally Donovan enter the canteen make their way to her.

"John called us," Greg says. "Said we'd be able to get here before they do. He told us about the autopsy report."

"Do you want to see?" Molly says and the two officers nod.

Back in Molly's office, she sits at her desk and pulls up the autopsy report again as Sally and Greg peer over her shoulders.

"Christ," Sally mutters. "How the hell did he pull that off?"

"Sally I swear to God, the back of his head was gone. I had a whole pan of pieces of his skull and brain that'd been scraped off the roof. So either that wasn't James Moriarty or this isn't," she says, gesturing to the photos of the smiling man.

"Is the paperwork still, you know, like it was?"

Molly clicks on the file and a fresh wave of nausea hits her. It's a scan of a standard autopsy report, but the name on top is hers, and it catalogs an assortment of injuries that would be sustained by a victim of a bomb blast.

"Jesus Christ, Molly," Lestrade says.

"I don't think he'll be much help in this case." They look up to see Sherlock standing in the doorway. He leans against the jamb nonchalantly while removing his gloves, but Molly notes the rigidness of his jaw and the flash of his eyes. She moves out of her chair as he walks around the desk to look at the screen. As he scans the fake report, his nostrils flare and his grip on the mouse is so tight that she fears he might break it.

Donovan pulls out her phone. "I'm sending bomb disposal to Molly's block to evacuate the building and do a sweep," she says as she heads out into the hallway.

"Get them here, too," Lestrade says, following her. Sherlock saves the files to a memory stick and stands.

"You're coming with me."

"Sherlock—"

"They're going to evacuate and sweep the hospital so you're not likely to get any work done. You won't be able to go back home for hours and even then it won't really be safe. It makes the most sense to come with me."

"Don't you have to, you know, work on the case?"

He shook his head. "Not enough yet to require any leg work. Besides, if it's really him, he'll contact me. Oh, will you call over to records and have them send whatever's in Moriarty's hard file to my flat?"

"Shouldn't your building be checked for bombs?"

"Mycroft's people are already on it. Come on, get your things."

He fell silent again in the cab, firing off text after text. His jaw is still tense. She wants to reach out and touch his face, will him to relax. She knows he can't, won't, until this is over.

There's a black car sitting outside 221 Baker Street when they arrive. Sherlock stops to talk to the driver briefly before leading Molly inside. He doesn't say a word as they hang up their coats and scarves and before she takes a step toward the sofa he spins her around and envelops her in his arms. His heart is absolutely pounding against her ear and his breath is ragged.

"Sherlock?"

"No," he says. "Not yet."

She nods and lets him hold her, his heart slowing gradually, though she counts and it never quite makes it to a normal resting rate. He pulls away finally and tells her to sit down. She watches from the sofa as he paces in front of the fireplace.

"Sherlock, is there something you want to tell me?"

He stops and faces the fireplace, looking at himself in the mirror for a long moment. Then he sits heavily in his chair, not looking at her as he speaks

"I didn't plan on getting into any of this since the current situation has nothing to do with it other than being timed very fortuitously. I just wanted to put it behind me. But I can't let your trust in me be based on false pretense or previous circumstances." He glances at her briefly then looks down, swallowing hard.

"What's happened?" she asks.

He looks over at her again, staring at her, scanning her, memorizing her. Like a drowning man taking his last look at dry land. And then he tells her everything. From Lady Smallwood's first appearance in his flat to the moment he decided that the only way to stop Magnussen was to kill him.

"I killed a few times while I was away. Mostly in self-defense. Nothing like this. It was easy, once I decided. I felt—righteous. That's the kind of man who's offering you protection, Molly. That's who I've become. And if Moriarty or whoever this is hadn't hijacked all the television screens in the country I'd be halfway to Bosnia right now to fulfill a suicide mission."

Molly is so busy trying to process everything she's learned, trying to come to terms with her anger with Mary, her sadness for John and Mary and her devastation for Sherlock that it takes her a moment to catch up to the last part.

"You were…you what?"

"I've put so many criminals away that there wasn't a safe place in England to incarcerate me so my punishment was being embedded in Eastern Europe on a mission that Mycroft estimated would kill me within six months. The plane had barely taken off before I was called back to handle-this."

Molly stares at him and she doesn't know who she is looking at. This man has been the sole focus of all her heart's longings for years. She's risked everything for him. He's been inside her. And no matter how well she thought she knew him she's not sure now she knows anything about him at all.

"You were going to leave. To go off—to die. And I was expecting to see you on New Year's Eve and I never would have known."

"John would have told you."

"Did John know you weren't coming back?"

Sherlock looks away, at the empty fireplace. "Molly—"

"What he fuck is _wrong _with you?" she shouts, then claps her hand over her mouth. Tears stream down her face and she feels like she's suffocating. He's at her side in an instant, reaching out to hold her, but she pushes away.

She can forgive everything. Every insult and slight and even his committing murder but she can't forgive this. Not his leaving again without saying goodbye. Leaving her dangling, expecting his return. Leaving her on the fucking shelf because she never again would have risked crushing some poor man's heart because she's branded herself for Sherlock Holmes.

"Molly, please," he says. He pulls her to him again and this time she lets him, even though he's the last person she wants right now, because he's the only person she wants for always. He cradles her head in his hands and brushes away the tears, even though they keep flowing, and presses his forehead against hers and whispers "Please, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry I hurt you. I don't ever want to hurt you."

The laugh that escapes her doesn't mock him. She knows he means it this time, that he's not just sorry that she's mad at him; he's sorry that he hurt her. He's sorry for all the times he hurt her. She laughs, one bitter exhalation, because she doesn't know what the hell she's supposed to do.

Then he's kissing her and she forgets that she's supposed to do anything other than return it. He is gentler than he's ever been with her, in word or action, but the tension in his bicep as she runs her hand down it to rest on his forearm is enough indication that he could fall over the edge and drag her with him. It would be so easy to let him, to forget for a little while how terrified she is. But she pulls back and puts her hand on his cheek. His mouth is still slightly open as he slowly opens his eyes.

"I forgive you, Sherlock. For all of it. Though you can't keep getting away with being a prick. And when all this is over we're not leaving this flat until we've made up for a lot of lost time. But right now you've got a case to solve and this can't get in the way."

Sherlock smiles at her, the sharp gleam in his eyes returning. "Of course." He kisses her one more time, hard on the mouth, before jumping up and taking the memory stick out of his pocket. He opens his laptop and inserts the stick into the drive.

Molly goes to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She looks in the mirror and squints. "Right. "Well. Let's do this," she says. When she returns to the sitting room he waves her over to the desk to look at the laptop screen with him. She stands beside him and he puts his hand on the small of her back, briefly.

"Okay," he says. "Let's go over it together. Tell me everything you see."


End file.
